MacPro Upgrades?

[Xager]

I am currently a Windows user at home though an apple user at school. My home computer is dieing, terribly. I want to get myself, and need to, a Mac Pro as soon as possible, problem is I don't have a $6,000 that I need for it, though I do have enough for a lesser specced one. I work with computers alot and so I know how to install hardware and troubleshoot and stuff, but I don't know how apple has done their stuff, am I able to get 1 Xeon now with my purchase and get the 2nd Xeon I want later on when i can afford it? have apple given you that opportunity? or will they only give me a board that can have 1 xeon if that it was i first order?

Thank you all for any help!

Regards,
Xager

 

[Fromethius]

How'd you rack up 6 grand?

I'm using 10 gigs of ram, an 8800 gt, 2 2.8 ghz xeon processors and it cost me 3 grand.

If you're a student you can get an ADC student membership and use the one time 20% hard ware discount and that can knock off 600 or 700 bucks.

Don't buy ram from Apple. Use OWC.

I wouldn't get software included or anything. You can find better deals and coupons later or find some alternate way of retrieving software.

I don't like changing batteries so I got it all wired (keyboard and mouse)

It shouldn't cost you that much.

 

[Xager]

I'm only a student for like 2 more weeks and I need this computer to start work not long after that so I can't really get a student discount anymore which totally sucks!

Anyway it was about $5,700 ish for what I wanted. for what I am looking at getting now, which I need to expand on later it will cost $3,539 which is:
# One 2.8GHZ Quad-Core Intel Xeon
# 2GB (2x1GB)
# 320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
# NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
# One 16x SuperDrive
# Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse (because i hated cords on mice)
# Apple Keyboard (English) + User's Guide
All that is copies directly off the apple site. And I was looking just now at the OWC ram so that knocks a bit off the total price.

Oh, and I live in Australia! I have just done a price comparison on the US apple store and I am pissed, its like $1000 more for the basic machine i want just cause I am in Australia! Dammit!

 

[neiltc13]

Did you consider looking at iMac as an option? You can get a Geforce 8800 on the 24" model.

 

[Xager]

Thanks for the advice, I am gonna get the top of the range iMac now instead. I use 2 monitors and had a look online just now and found that the "new" iMac's support the spanning is that through the "video out" according to the iMac gallery. so i am assuming an adapter for DVI/VGA? can anyone confirm this?

 

[tri3limited]

Mini-DVI to DVI/VGA - Buy from Amazon as it's cheaper!

Good choice on the iMac, to upgrade the Mac Pro processor from one to two Xeon's is ridiculously expensive.

You can upgrade your iMac RAM for just £60-odd for 4GB from Crucial... Apple are an absolute rip off for upgrades!

Also i would recommend an external FW800 HDD and getting maybe a smaller internal HDD.

Finally, it's seriously worth selecting the 2.8GHz iMac and then customizing it to a 3.06 so you can get the ATi graphics card. Despite what the Apple site says, the performance isn't that much of an increase plus nVidia are yet to confirm if the nVidia 8800GS cards are defective (if they are they have a rumored 100% failure rate).

Also with student discount you can order it for a mere £1,200 (might be a bit less) if you order it over the phone, and thats WITH AppleCare (£38)